Biden’s frailty has exposed the cravenness of the media

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It’s only a few short weeks into the summer, but already the Joe Biden campaign is melting faster than a popsicle at a Texas barbecue.

After the debate debacle last month, when the US president struggled to string a sentence together, the lackeys in the mainstream media suddenly remembered that their main purpose is to ask some questions of those in power. It’s as if they’ve spent the past eight years trapped in a fever dream of fear and loathing over Donald Trump, and are only now waking up to the frightening reality of a non-functioning president in the White House.

Let’s remember that America’s octogenarian president has been, for at least the past year, wandering off stages and slurring his words, falling up stairs and staring into space. ‘Edited videos! False claims! Cheap fakes!’, the bobbleheaded dolls of the American media elite all chanted in unison in Biden’s defence.

The media’s willingness to shield the president has been staggering. The Associated Press reported on 21 June that Dr Kevin O’Connor, the president’s physician, said that ‘Biden has… showed no signs of stroke, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s or other similar conditions’. On 2 July, the New York Times reported essentially the same thing, quoting the same doctor having ‘“no findings which would be consistent with” Parkinson’s disease’. Then, on Saturday 6 July, Alex Berenson, former New York Times journalist turned independent-media heretic, reported on his Substack that a Parkinson’s disease specialist, Dr Kevin R Cannard, ‘has visited the White House at least nine times in the past year’.

Wow! How did the tricksy Mr Berenson come by this bombshell information? Did he get it from a dodgy Russian source? Did some villainous Trump supporter leak it to him? Actually, no. He checked the publicly available White House visitor logs, which are searchable to anyone with an internet connection.

Of course, the multiple visits by this Parkinson’s specialist are not absolute proof that the president is in the grips of that or any other particular disease. But it is still amazing that no other news outlet thought to check for any signs that something might be up. On Monday this week, the New York Times reported on Berenson’s scoop, though without giving him any credit. Yesterday, the White House admitted to the visits, but refused to give any further explanation.

Having said all that, since the press has turned on Biden, it has been doing an excellent job publishing leaks coming from within the sinking ship that is HSS Joe. This week, Axios obtained a template that Biden’s staff use to prepare him for events. It includes photographs of each event space ‘accompanied with big text such as: “View from podium” and “View from audience”’. Multiple unnamed staffers and aides are mentioned in the report. On 2 July, the New York Times revealed that ‘people in the room with him’ and those who dealt with him ‘behind closed doors’ are deeply worried about his deteriorating health.

In their new zeal for going hard on the president, some news outlets’ standards have gone way up. It was reported earlier this week that a radio host called Andrea Lawful-Sanders at a local station in Philadelphia was forced to resign because she conducted an interview with the president using questions that were pre-approved by the White House media team. The radio station released a statement over the weekend saying they were ‘not a mouthpiece’ for the Biden administration. Since when has the mainstream, corporate-owned media in the US been anything other than a mouthpiece for the Biden administration?

The main question all this raises is why poor Andrea Lawful-Sanders was shown the door while professional boot-licker Joe Scarborough continues to pump out party propaganda every day on MSNBC’s Morning Joe. Let’s not forget that after urging Democrats to jettison Biden and avoid a Trump election win shortly after the debate, Scarborough did a hilarious about-face only a week later. Perhaps because he realised his Dear Leader won’t go quietly, he solemnly told his audience: ‘Let’s take a deep breath, and let’s understand, it’s only 5 July. Such a historic decision should not be made in haste.’

I’ll admit, it has been a blast watching these craven flunkies and fawning courtiers get whiplash as they try to figure out who is going to come out on top so as to save their own skins. I just wish the United States wasn’t hanging in the balance in the meantime.

Jenny Holland is a former newspaper reporter and speechwriter. Visit her Substack here.